Does anyone find Ebay's fees excessive?

RonBurgundy

I've recently started to sell more on Ebay, and as a result have paid closer attention to the fees they charge. Ugh. It's not so much the auction fees, but when you add the auction fees to the Paypal fees and they wind up clearing more than 6% on each transaction. Of course you can choose not to accept Paypal, then you get ridiculously low winning bids because people won't take the time to write a check, put it in the envelope and send it in the mail.

Combine this with the ultra low prices being realized on Ebay the past 2 months and it makes me wonder why I even bother.




Stay classy,


Ron

onlyanumber

6%??? Some months I'm losing 10-12% to Ebay. I love it when they send me surveys about their quality of service. It's my only way to vent about how they screw you on the way in and then on the way out.

lostdart58

where were you selling before?? What kind of stuff are you selling?

High end stuff seem to generate decent prices on Ebay .........while low end stuff may not.......but on items (under $10) your S/H charge should almost cover the various fees AND postage

ndleo

Ron - Yes the fees are getting out of control. However consider the cost of trying to set up a web business that could compete with ebay. That is the sad reality of living with a monopolistic business.

I know that most sellers try to re-coup some costs through S&H. You can't have it too high or it will discourage bidding. Anything under $3 for a single card seems to be the going rate right now.

Eventually the only cards on ebay will be $20+ cards. You can't make much of a profit selling anything less.

gosteelers

I know where you guys are coming from, but honestly, where else would you find the amount of buyers that eBay offers? They pretty much operate a monopoly right now and there's not much we can do about it from what I see, unless we all decide to boycott eBay!

RonBurgundy

Lost Dart - I've been selling 50's and 60's vintage, graded and ungraded. Graded stuff is mostly 7-8. Ungraded ranges anywhere from VG to NM.

It's just ridiculous. If prices realized are high, then one can stomach the fees. If not, then it's like a double whammy. The deals I've felt the best about are the ones where some of my buyers have contacted me wanting more cards, and I've sold them off Ebay and avoided these fees.

By the way, if anyone is interested in raw 57 or 58 Topps, let me know. This was headed to Ebay but I've put the brakes on that. If it takes me 2 years to sell every single card off of Ebay, then so be it.



Stay classy,


Ron

Knuckles

They're lewd! vesivius! salacious! outrageous!

Allen

I hate paying eBay. But think if you set up at a show for $100 for 3 days and make $1,000 (or a big show at $500/ $5,000) you might consider it a decent show. You are giving up the same 10% that is unless you gouge your prices for the mall crowd. Then you have to figure gas, hotel, food, etc. if any of that factors in. Then the time is the biggest factor, I can type up a few dozen eBay auctions pretty quick and have my whole weekend for other stuff.

jayhawke

The fees can only go up over time. Ebay is a public company who has to answer to shareholders. They probably can't cut their expenses enough to effect their future earnings.

Knuckles

They need a major competitor.

brianwintersfan

<< <i>They're lewd! vesivius! salacious! outrageous! >>



Thank you Jackie Chiles!

jmbkb4

<< <i>The fees can only go up over time. Ebay is a public company who has to answer to shareholders. They probably can't cut their expenses enough to effect their future earnings. >>


They could have avoided investing $100,000,000.00 (literally) in their China market.

carew4me

Considering Ebay is the genesis of most of our renewed collecting interest in addition to being the source for 99% of most collections,
I am not sure how anyone can complain about %10 fees.

yankeeno7

I personally have found that opening an ebay store is the way to go. OK, so 15 bucks a month...better than a table at any show for one day of the month....listings are only 2 cents although I think final value fee is something like 8%. You can make that up by asking for a little more than what you would figure on auction....or a lot more depending on how long you want to sit on the item. I admit I make up for those fees quite well. I really do believe Im making more with the store than I am with auction. Give it a try.

What kills me more is Paypal...now THAT is more difficult to swallow than the ebay fees.

gameusedhoop

Just recently Ebay has buried the store listings. They used to have a link for just store items on every search page. They are now at the end of each search and are hard to find. One of the searches that I do has about 1000 items on any given day. I only look at the ones ending in 24 hours and the ones listed in the last 24 hours. Then I would click the store link for the search and the new store listings would come up. Now I have to figure out how many auction items there are and go to the last page and the stores are listed after. Either that or I have to look at the aution items, then use the BIN link for the search. Then you have to look through all the BIN auctions again, before seeing the store items. They are harder to find, harder to buy.

As far as the fees go, stores are just as bad as auctions if not worse for less exposure. A couple cents to list is no big deal, but 8% FVF is HIGH. Add another 3% for Paypal fees and you are right there with the auction fees.

I just looked at my sales reports for the last 7 months of auctions (Feb not in yet), the combined Ebay and Paypal fees were 12%, 10.2%, 16.7%, 9.8%, 11.2%, 11.7% and 5.9% by month. With a total of 10.4%. Not cheap by any means, but it seems better than the stores especially when you have to add the $16 a month in fixed costs for the storefront. My same $$$ in sales in a store would be 12.4%. Taking 8% of my sales, adding $16 a month for store fees and adding Paypal fees (same for store or auction) would cost me another 2%. Everyones #'s would vary some, but this is not a small sample, with my average sale being just over $50 for the last 7 months.

Buccaneer

Sounds like a typical Internet mindset - wanting something for nothing.

I personally find eBay a tremendous bargain. What other store, place of business, auction house, etc. will provide the mechanism to sell/consign your stuff for only a 10% fee?

onlyanumber

I can live with the Ebay fees, I really can. I've come to expect losing a certain percentage to Ebay for the chance to sell a card or electronic item etc. The paypal fees are what gets me. It's a catch-22 Sell on Ebay and only accept check or money order and 8 out of 10 times your item sells for less than normal. Accept paypal and the fees add up.

pb19991

I have to agree with Buccaneer on this. 10% isn't a terrible price to pay considering the volume of custmers you have access to. if you don't believe me try renting a table at a card show for $100-150 for the weekend and sit there all day, if you sell vintage you will see a very small volume of the traffic looking for vintage to buy. everyone loves to look at the cards but very few buyers, i have'nt done a card show in several years just because it's so boring at times to sit all day or weekend trying to sell a few cards to people who want something for nothing. I do however at times feel ripped off by paypal, especially on larger dollar sales they really add up fees in a hurry on those. usually i charge $1 on the ungrdaed single cards for shipping and .25 on add'l cards won same period up to a max of $5, i did have a buyer who bought a single card for $1.99 and paid me thru paypal $2.99 with shipping and then proceeded to leave me a poor feedback because i charged a $1 shipping when it only cost me .39 to mail it. by the time e bay and paypal took their cut i did'nt make any on the shipping. i guess you can't please everyone all the time. PB

WinPitcher

NO..what i do find is the price of the cards I need is excessive.


Steve

detroitfan2

<<Considering Ebay is the genesis of most of our renewed collecting interest in addition to being the source for 99% of most collections,
I am not sure how anyone can complain about %10 fees.>>

Exactly what I wanted to say, only said much better than I could have said it.

I'm infinitely more disturbed by the fact that it costs my family $1200 annually to get 60 channels of cable television and a decent cable internet connection.

WinPitcher

..and their's nothin on..................


Steve

Sets

ebay is what it is, I say expensive, and question if it's worth it sometimes, Sometimes it is, other times it is not. This month........sales are down, There could be numerous reasons such as; could be tax time, could be high cost of energy, could be lousy items at auction/in store for me, could be all the big money going to mastro etc., ........you say look at the exposure.....Look at the # of hits per auction you receive , thats your exposure. But it is an easy marketplace to sell at, and unlike a show, you don't have to lug all that inventory around. Ebay Stores are ok, I have one, auctions drive people to your stores though, it's a catch 22, want a successful store run lots of auctions. I was pricing stuff for the fort this weekend and needed to take a break, stop by # 616 and say hello if anyone here goes. Otherwise, back to the fun; some call work, while others call it a hobby, LOL .......

ctsoxfan

I don't have an issue with Ebay or PayPal fees - in fact, I am always surprised by sellers who cry about PayPal fees when they say they won't take PayPal. Small prices to pay, on both sides, for the service you get.

Where else are you going to sell your cards, to a worldwide marketplace - for free?

ndleo

There is another option - Naxcom. If you are not in a rush, I prefer using Naxcom for my high end graded cards. Sure you may miss out on that one crazy bidder who must have the card, but overall I get better prices on Naxcom. The only downside is that you never know when it will sell. I do prefer Naxcom over the Ebay store because there are no fixed costs.

I just sold a $135 card and will pocket $127 after fees and S&H. That is only a 5.9% fee. If you price your cards a reasonable amount over ebay, they will sell. Plus Naxcom secures the entire transaction better than ebay does. They actually emailed me when a buyer was suspect.

RonBurgundy

I agree with your point about Naxcom and am curious as to whether they would ever consider creating an auction site. Seems to me that would've been a better investment than buying The Pit.



Stay classy,



Ron

baseballcardsonly

<< <i>

By the way, if anyone is interested in raw 57 or 58 Topps, let me know. This was headed to Ebay but I've put the brakes on that. If it takes me 2 years to sell every single card off of Ebay, then so be it.

Stay classy,

Ron >>



Ron,

PM sent....

Stone193

I agree that looking for other competitive avenues is always an option.

So let's look at the glass as half full:

When you sell on ebay, you assume almost zero liability/risk in comparison to a brick and mortar operation.

And the amount of work you put into this is truly minimal also - in comparison to other businesses.
Even if we're talking about setting up at show - table fees, hauling all that stuff, gas, food, possible lodging etc.

Finally, I see ebay as the "messenger" that everyone is trying to kill. There will always be someone to replace them and the fees? Who knows? They may just go up as their cost of operation increases.

mike